Ordinary Biology lessons

Turning to the three normal Biology lessons which were dominated by teacher talk (teacher-centred), we note that in two of those lessons the teacher engaged the students in the lessons by making the lessons class discussions. In the third lesson the teacher wrote notes for the students on the chalkboard. He stopped now and again to explain every step involved in preparing a leaf for a starch test.

119

The students were copying the notes and listening to the teacher’s explanations simultaneously. So, in this one lesson teacher talk accounted for more than 90 per cent of class time. The teacher was preparing the students for a practical lesson which was to follow on testing a leaf for starch. During the lesson the teacher was always the one to initiate student talk by asking the students questions. Students never asked the teacher a single question during this lesson – a possible cause for poor understanding and thus poor performance in the subject for most students. Apprehension in the students has to be managed as it is the main cause of their being reserved during lessons. Encouraging students by praising those who attempt to answer or ask questions could make a difference. Discouraging teachers from punishing students for giving wrong answers is also a solution. This is because Mr. Sameline informed me that one of the reasons students fear answering, not to mention asking questions, is that the students are often punished severely at the junior level for failing tests and for giving wrong answers during science lessons.

Humiliation of a student by other students must also be discouraged by natural science teachers as a way of encouraging student talk in natural sciences classes. The humiliation could be in the form of laughter by the students when one of them gives a wrong answer (something one observed during one of the practical lessons). The natural science teacher can also try to make sense of a student’s answer even when it seems far from being correct by reinforcing it or re-structuring it until it takes the acceptable form. Positive encouragement by the teacher to talk in class will drive away anxiety in the students and empower them ask whatever they do not understand. This is with reference to Vincent who kept quiet during the lesson just because he had been left behind and was trying to catch up when he was quiet. Students should be discouraged from piling up academic work unnecessarily. They should seek help immediately; supported by research question 3 and the learning objectives.

120

Some of the questions the natural science teacher asks in class should be those that require elaborate answers, not only short answers. The questions should be of varying cognitive demand. In probing students for understanding the teacher should not wait for them to raise their hands before pointing at them to answer. The teacher needs to look at them in the eyes to judge their comprehension and then pick those few students across the classroom for questioning. Natural sciences teachers need to be very careful when it comes to the use of everyday words that have different technical meanings when used in some topics or concepts in science. Such terms should be stressed or highlighted and used properly by the teacher.

Mr. Sameline needs to encourage student talk and active learning. This should be encouraged among all teachers so that the students are exposed to them every time they have a lesson with a teacher. These practices include reinforcing a student’s answer, gesturing and even code-switching when necessary. Even introducing a concept or topic by telling a relevant and interesting story is beneficial. The story could be about how the concept was discovered or invented or just a story of the history of the discoverer or inventor. It could include the achievements of the discoverer or the significance or application of the discovery or about aspects the students can immediately associate with in the environment. Gestures are good in that they usually give students a practical sense of what an abstract or amazing discovery/invention is. Students remember their teacher’s gestures even in the examination room when asked a question or still long after completing school in adulthood.

The lesson that was done to prepare the students for the practical on the cross- sectional structure of a dicotyledonous leaf was well done in that it engaged the students and their teacher in descriptive, relational and explanatory semiotic resources and formations. The teacher even brought teaching aids like handouts and a dicotyledonous leaf picked from outside the laboratory for demonstration purposes. The leaf helped in providing a concrete reference to the teacher’s

121

descriptions and explanations which were more abstract than concrete. During this lesson Mr. Sameline made conceptual and grammatical mistakes about which the students kept quiet. One would not expect all the students to realise their teacher’s mistakes but those few who did should have informed the teacher so that information was corrected. Mr. Sameline would have used the students’ awareness of the mistakes as indicators that the students were indeed following the lesson. It is crucial for a Biology teacher to have complete mastery of the content because once students learn the wrong content then it becomes difficult for them to replace it with the correct content in future, even if the correction is made by the same teacher who made the mistake. In their minds the two contents (wrong and correct) lie side by side and compete for recall; as stated in literature. The existence of such contrasting contents in students’ minds is not good in trying times like tests and examinations. Student talk, therefore, during natural science lessons is essential because it helps prevent the development of misconceptions in students’ minds, as in the above example. Teachers should also teach using the language of science so that their students emulate them and stop using words like “thing” in their formal talk or writing.

From this same lesson student talk in the form of answering in class improved with better performance by the students. Sarah engaged in more talk than her two counterparts and Sharon engaged in least talk. Sarah answered five questions and Sharon only two questions from the teacher. One may then appeal to natural sciences teachers to encourage even the low achievers to engage more in classroom talk as it seems like the more a student contributes during a lesson the better that student achieves in the subject. The teacher talk and writing should be rich in the semiotic science resources and formations and also be well-informed with literature on that subject.

Teachers need to give their students individual attention for them to get to know their students’ problems and difficulties. But if the class is a group of forty plus students then it becomes difficult for a teacher to give all the students adequate

122

individual attention during a forty-minute period. Even if it is a double period, marking class work or homework in class, making comments to the students and giving solutions to students’ personal problems becomes impossible to fit within class time. It is therefore understandable why Mr. Sameline could not wait for a reason from Sharon as to why she had not done the homework. He was rushing to assist as many students during the lesson as possible. Administrators need to be involved in finding a solution to the issue of large classes since it contributes to poor discourse patterns in class and low performance by students; fourth objective.

The last issue is that of English language among the students. The students needed to have a good command of English to do well in Biology. The good command of English language will help the students express their knowledge/questions accurately. Grammatical mistakes and direct translation from mother tongue to English language will be avoided. The natural science teacher need not struggle to figure out what the student is trying to say when the English is good; nor will there be a need for the teacher to share the same mother language and culture with the students. Natural science teachers need to help their students with their language problems in collaboration with the English language teachers in the school. When students struggle with English language, the problem gets compounded by scientific language.

The last lesson observed was on malnutrition. It was a forty-minute teacher- centred lesson in which the teacher spent most of the time giving the students formal notes on the chalkboard. The spoon-feeding, instead of telling students to read from their textbooks, library books and the internet and then make their own notes, encourages the students to rely on the teacher’s notes only. Should the teacher make mistakes, as was observed in some lessons, the students still took those mistakes with them into the examination room. The teacher’s explanations about the effects of malnutrition dominated the lesson and as usual student talk was mostly initiated by the teacher. So, no questions were asked of the teacher

123

by the students; only the teacher asked questions. This practice is a contributing factor to students’ poor performance in the natural sciences examinations.

When discussing the effects of malnutrition Mr. Sameline caused discomfort to some of the students by some of his questions or examples, for example, when he asked the class if there were students in the group who were suffering from kwashiorkor. To the undernourished students the question could be humiliating. Teachers need to be sensitive to the students’ feelings when handling such topics or subtopics . The other effects of malnutrition, like obesity, marasmus and coronary heart diseases were also accompanied by thoughtless comments from the teacher. Students may end up with an aversion to a subject or even the teacher if such concepts are dealt with negatively. In addition there is a problem when the teacher makes an example out of some of the students or their relatives. Some of the students may then decide to switch off and not participate in classroom discourse regardless of how relevant that concept or topic might be for them.

From this lesson one realises something significant. Teachers should consider the chorus “yes” from their students with great care because at times the response may be misleading. While discussing marasmus with the students the teacher asked them if they ate enough. Their response was the usual chorus “yes”. Then he went on to say at their homes they share the food no matter how little it may be. Therefore, teachers should not rely on a class response for concept or lesson evaluation but on individual evaluation (and in writing especially). Natural sciences teachers should engage their students more in applicable questions or questions that require explanation during lessons. The students need guidance with such questions as they tend to give inadequate answers and thus do not get full marks. To train students on giving complete answers teachers can engage students in debates. A topic like “Coronary heart diseases are not as bad as kwashiorkor and marasmus” could be a good debate topic for cultivating the culture of talking in class and giving accurate and full

124

explanations. The students in the debate teams should be of mixed abilities to motivate the low achievers.